Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [46]
Commandant Mishkin smiled. “We have been undergoing some wonderful renovations. The emperor is very concerned about the humane treatment of prisoners. We just finished expanding the cells and introducing all possible amenities. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”
My suspicions revived again. “How do you mean? Surely, you do not expect me to evaluate these amenities by myself?”
He laughed, a great belly laugh suitable to a man much bigger and more rounded. “I should’ve known,” he said between guffaws. “You take after your aunt. She always makes me laugh.”
“You know her?”
“We are old friends,” he said, as if it was an obvious fact that should’ve been known to me. “I owe my position here to her—not in a direct way, of course, but still. It took her long enough to call on our acquaintance.”
“Why is that?”
“She always tries to do things the right way, no bribes, no calling in favors—unless there’s no other way, of course.” Mishkin stopped mid-stride to cross his eyes and give his mustache a critical look. He wetted his thick thumb and forefinger with his tongue and twisted the mustache tips into points. Satisfied with the results, he continued. “She is old fashioned, your aunt, no matter how much she loves progress. She still expects things to be as they used to—as they ought to. Only you and I, we both know that progress has its price, and this price includes the cost of doing business.” He winked. “And here we are.”
If there ever existed such a thing as a cozy jail, Alexeevsky Ravelin was it. Gone were the stone walls weeping cold and moisture from cracks in crumbling mortar, and the hallway between the doors—all padded with cheerfully colored cloth—was straight, well-lit and dry. Mishkin was not lying about Constantine’s humanitarian inclinations.
I followed him along several corridors, almost losing my footing when he turned the corner abruptly and entered another one. It was like traversing a labyrinth, and my suspicions intensified once more. The smell inside was also starting to bother me—not the clean cold smells of the river that surrounded the fortress like mother’s embrace, but a tepid, faintly rotted miasma that was bound to breed consumption and fevers.
Mishkin stopped outside of a door no different from any other. There was an observation slit in the door at eye level, and another one just above the ground, no doubt for passing through meals or other objects. I peered through the observation slot, steeling myself for the worst.
Wong Jun looked quite comfortable, sitting on his bed with a book in his hands. There was a wooden door separating his room from a small stall in the back—a garderobe, I assumed. Overall, it was rather more civilized than I expected.
Wong Jun was wearing a long silk robe in green and yellow, a bit frayed at the collar. His face was paler and gaunter than I remembered, and his mustache, still long, looked as frayed as his collar. In addition, his beard had been growing without much care or grooming, which gave him a slightly mad and hermitlike appearance. To be expected out of a political prisoner, I supposed.
I nodded to Mishkin and he let me in. He locked the door behind me, and I briefly wondered if he would be right outside, eavesdropping. “Wong Jun,” I said.
He looked up then—I supposed the clanging of the door was not unusual or promising enough to attract his attention.
Wong Jun startled at the sound of my voice, and his book fell to the floor. He jumped up and grabbed my hands as if I were a dear friend, not someone he met only a few times and spoke to once. But I found myself overcome too. After a moment when we both were at a loss for words, tears forced their way out of my eyes. Wong Jun embraced me and cried too.
“I am so sorry I couldn’t come and see you before,” I said. “When I made inquiries, they arrested me . . . ”
“And yet you are not in prison,” he interrupted, then grinned. “I apologize. It was not my intention to imply anything but my sincere joy that you remain free.”
“I had assistance,” I said.
He nodded. “I must say I am surprised to see you.